


the extended family

by tempestaurora



Series: hydra's not a home [13]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Emotional Conversations, Family Bonding, Fluff, Gen, Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Peter says Fuck, Teen for language, Tony Stark Has A Heart, lots of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 18:25:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16247288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tempestaurora/pseuds/tempestaurora
Summary: Clint is teaching Peter about the ventilation system in the Tower, and how to navigate it. Steve just wants to go on a run. Vision likes chess and Peter has gotten a little too close to Natasha's past for her liking.Sam has plans to hustle all of New York, Wanda is called upon for an important favour and Bucky really should've told Peter not to wear such an obnoxious t-shirt.Rhodey just needs to apologise and Tony tells Peter more about the past he's forgotten.Also contains: multiple heart-to-hearts, an arm wrestling competition in a dive bar and the internet, catching their first ever glimpse of the prodigal Stark son.





	the extended family

**Author's Note:**

> here's peter parker from the avengers' perspectives. this took forever to write, it's also 9k over my expectations and involves more rhodey than anyone could've asked for. (or: me, fixing the timeline, as i foolishly forgot to write rhodey into the story when it mattered.)
> 
> we're narrowing down on the last fics of the series!! if you haven't read the rest of the series, you should totally go read it first (i promise, it's pretty good). we've got maybe two fics left before the story's finished, so i'm feeling a little sad about it but mostly excited.
> 
> i hope you guys enjoy the fic!

**i. CLINT BARTON**

There was a training room in the Tower that Peter was allowed to use when supervised. Clint, enjoying watching a seventeen-year-old flip around a room with knives in his hands (the hardcore version of running with scissors) always volunteered to supervise.

“This is too easy,” Peter moaned, backflipping and sending a knife into the target, dead centre. Clint quirked an eyebrow.

“Do it blindfolded.”

Peter frowned, rolled his eyes, but went to collect the blindfold anyway. Clint sat, cross-legged, at the side of the room. The compound was almost finished with renovations. It was to be completed half way through March, and with it being two weeks away, Clint was excited to see the new building. They’d only had the compound for a few years, but he considered it a home away from home. Tony had asked him for his opinions a few weeks ago about the décor for his children’s rooms.

 _His children._ Their rooms were apparently opposite his in a quieter wing of the compound, away from the early riser of Steve Rogers and loud stomping feet of a particular god of thunder. Tony was really thinking of everything, when it came to the new building. Including, he guessed, an expansive new Iron Suite to hold his brand new kid.

Peter flipped, blindfolded, and still hit the target perfectly.

“Show off,” Clint said.

Peter grinned. “It hit, huh?”

“Yeah, but the interest wears off once I’ve seen it a hundred times. You want to do something else?”

Peter pushed up the blindfold until it sat on his forehead. “Like what?”

Clint shrugged. “Snoop.”

“Snoop?”

“Yeah,” Clint said, standing. “There’s vents that run throughout the entire building, built big enough to hide in in case of an attack, and therefore, big enough to crawl through.”

“You want me, an ex-terrorist, to climb through the vents of a secure, SHIELD agent-riddled building.” It wasn’t a question. Clint nodded. Peter grinned.

 

*

 

“Oh my god,” Peter whispered, staring down a vent slat into a meeting. Tony and Pepper sat at one end of the table, their outfits every bit as polished as could be expected. Some board member was arguing about something and Tony looked two inches from falling asleep.

Clint peeked down the other vent for the room. He had a slightly different angle and Peter glanced up to see his smirk. “This is super confidential,” he whispered. They were connected with a comms system because Clint was treating it like a mission to gather intel. _Almost like I’m training you, huh?_

Clint could see the presentation displayed on the wall, the confidential water mark painted across it. It looked like a new technology that someone wanted to build. Looked an awful lot like a weapon to him.

“No,” Pepper said, standing and breaking the conversation. “We’re not building it. It’s got too much potential for disaster.”

“It _heals_!” someone argued back. Clint couldn’t see their face.

“Oh, don’t kid yourself,” Pepper retorted. “That’s a super soldier serum in the making. We didn’t take on Extremis and its _healing_ , and we’re not taking on this. I do not _care_ what promises _you_ made to shareholders and the inventors, but this has “world domination” written all over it.”

“Yeah, Pepper, you tell ‘em,” Peter said, further down the vent. Clint sighed and let his forehead drop against the vent.

The members of the board looked up then, frowns on their faces.

“Peter?” Pepper asked, her voice wary.

“Hey,” he said. “I’m gonna go now, I just thought I’d say you’re doing great.”

Clint watched Pepper struggle to decide between smiling or not. She landed on something in between. “Thanks honey,” she called back, almost confused. Behind her, Tony was laughing into the hand he’d pressed over his mouth and Clint shook his head at it all.

“You know,” he said, conversationally. “The whole point of this was to be _hidden._ Stealthy, kid. If you wanted them to know we’re here, you might as well have just walked through the door.”

Behind him in the vent, Peter laughed. Later, Clint would have an angry board member and a security guard remind him of the definition of the word _confidential_. Until then, Clint wanted to learn a little more about Sam Wilson’s search history, and he figured he could do that with the kid.

 

 

**ii. STEVE ROGERS**

“Mr Good and Righteous,” Peter greeted without looking up from his textbook. Steve frowned – he’d barely entered the living room of the Stark house; how did the kid know it was him?

“Peter,” he replied. “You busy?”

Peter shrugged, flipping the textbook closed. “Not really. Homework was made to be ignored.”

Steve sent him a look. “Homework is supp-”

“I _know_ ,” Peter huffed. “I’ve heard your homework PSA like three times this month.” He rolled his eyes. “ _So_ , you haven’t completed your homework.”

Steve’s lips twitched into half a smile. The kid had his cadence down. “You know, I was told they’d stop airing those after like a year,” he said. “It was all pro-Avengers propaganda. Like how Stark visited a bunch of hospitals after the Chitauri and Clint did that charity run?”

“And yet they’re _state mandated_ now,” Peter replied.

Steve frowned. “You would’ve thought they’d overturn that after the fight in Germany-”

“-Walmart parking lot-”

“-happened.” Steve shrugged. “I’m here to see if you want to go on a run.”

“A run?”

“Yes, it’s that thing where you go slightly faster than walking.”

Peter rolled his eyes and pulled himself up from the sofa. “I know what running is, Grandpa. I’m allowed out of the house though?”

Steve half-heartedly raised his hand. “Chaperone.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “One of these days I’ll be outside _by myself,_ you know that?”

“Can’t wait,” Steve said. “You want to run or not?”

 

*

 

They jogged around Central Park for two hours before coming to a rest. Peter blew out a breath and Steve stretched until he heard a faint click in his back. They’d jogged half in silence and half with small talk.

“You’re on the track team, right?” Steve asked as Peter flopped onto a nearby bench.

“Yeah, but I never get to go that hard,” he said. “People tend to get suspicious when you can keep up with a super soldier.”

Steve had let it slip from his mind that they should’ve taken breaks to at least keep up appearances, but Peter held his own without problem. He was shorter and leaner than Steve, but he had excellent stamina and Tony had told him that he could lift _seventy-five tons_ at a push. If it weren’t for all the people in the park, Steve would’ve challenged the kid to a race.

He collapsed onto the bench next to Peter and went about retying his shoelaces, though there was nothing wrong with them.

“I heard about the _Spiderman_ thing,” he said, and when Peter didn’t respond, continued, “I watched some of the videos. You caught a bus.”

“I caught a bus.”

“That’s impressive. Though I’m more impressed with the old ladies you helped cross the road and the cats you helped down from trees.” Glancing over, he saw Peter’s shuttered expression. He was used to spies hiding their emotions, but Peter was usually an open book. “Anyone with enhanced strength can catch a bus,” he continued, “but only people with a good heart will take the time to help the kittens and the elderly.”

They sat back in silence for a while. People had clearly recognised Steve during his run, but right now no one paid any mind to the two sweat-drenched men on the bench. Peter rolled his head until he was looking at Steve.

“Thanks,” he said, quiet. “You know, I was raised to hate you.”

“I figured as much.”

He hummed. “I was told that I would kill you one day. You, Tony, Bucky.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Peter said. “HYDRA’s fucking stupid, though.”

Steve didn’t bother to lecture about the language. He just looked over to Peter, who was pushing himself back onto his feet. “I could totally take you in a fight, though,” he said, his smile reappearing on his face. “In fact, if I remember rightly, I _did_. And how did that go, I wonder? Oh yeah, Bucky got stuck to a wall and _you_ couldn’t land a hit on me.”

“Alright, let’s not get so cocky,” Steve replied, standing. “You’re forgetting the fact that we’ve sparred since-”

“-Oh yeah, _sparring_. The true measure of a person’s ability. When people are pulling their punches and being watched. Absolutely, you winning in sparring once or twice _totally_ makes up for losing to me in the real thing-”

Steve couldn’t help from smiling; the kid was moving a little back with every word, his tone dripping with sarcasm and amusement.

“Alright, Pete, you wanna go? No holds barred, no punches pulled?”

He hummed, grinning. “We _could_ , but you’d have to catch me first.”

Peter darted off down the path and Steve shot off after him. He’d give it to the kid, Peter was _fast._

 

 

**iii. VISION**

They played each other at chess and Peter was yet to win a game.

“You’re a walking computer,” Peter groused. “It’s like playing chess on _extra extra extra extra hard mode._ ”

“I’m sorry, Peter,” Vision replied. “I can tone it down an _extra_ if you’d like.”

Peter shook his head. “No, I’ll get there,” he replied. “I almost had you last time.”

 _Last time_ , Vision had seen Peter’s tactic from the first eye twitch. He nodded anyway. “Of course you did! Had me on the run for a while there.”

Peter set the chess pieces up and gestured for Vision to start. Vision, out of courtesy, tried not to access at least half of the information he had on chess strategy, despite the fact he’d memorised it. This time, Peter managed to take three of Vision’s pieces before losing.

It was a personal best.

 

 

**iv. NATASHA ROMANOFF**

Nat knew people like the back of her hand. She was trained for it. She didn’t like surprises and she preferred to have safe bets on what anyone would do in a given situation. So with Peter, she knew he was trying to figure out her past – he’d once given her a strange, studious look and said with certainty, “Natasha Romanoff isn’t your real name.” He’d then left and not brought it up since. So, she knew he’d try to figure out it, and despite how hidden her past was, how buried and practically non-existent it had become, she knew he had a chance.

Nat just figured it would take a lot longer than this.

Peter had only known her for three quarters of a year – a _lot_ less time than Tony Stark or any other Avenger, including Clint Barton, who decidedly did not know her birthname but said with equal (heart-warming) decisiveness, “I don’t need to know what your parents called you to know you, Nat.”

That’s why it was a surprise when he figured it out so fast.

She was picking him up from school, which seemed to be a big deal, because students were taking photos of her standing next to a sleek black sports car. She spotted Peter at the top of the steps, and when he saw her (and the phone cameras), he slowed and made a performance out of searching through his backpack. Acting like he’d forgotten something, Peter disappeared inside the school and re-emerged five minutes later, when the bulk of the students had climbed on their buses and left.

She raised an eyebrow at him when he approached.

“I really don’t need people taking my photo and sending it to Buzzfeed or something,” he replied with a shrug. “Dad says I need to keep hold of the anonymity thing for a little longer.”

He climbed in the car, ignoring the way her features sharpened just a little at the word _Dad_. She didn’t know their relationship had advanced that much. To be fair, it had been at least seven months since Peter turned seventeen, and so around eight when he was first spotted in that Queens HYDRA base.

Eight months from Black Spider to _Dad._ That was a long way to go and Nat pondered that as she walked around the car and slipped into the driver’s seat.

She didn’t mention it, though, as mentioning it would give Peter the power to give her a narrative, whether false or not. He was likely to give her something exaggerated or missing the main points – she’d find out for herself what had occurred to make this change when it suited her better.

“I know that look,” Peter said, casual and looking out his window. He wasn’t even looking at her. She supressed the smile; she liked watching the little spy work.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. You’re analysing me again. As if I’m some riddle to be solved.”

“Everyone’s a riddle,” Nat replied.

“Not everyone. Some people are more straightforward.”

“Like who?”

Peter shrugged. “Rhodey. He’s an open book.”

Nat nodded, though she was fairly sure Peter had only met Rhodey on a handful of occasions so far – maybe he’d caught on quick though; he’d seen what type of person James Rhodes was. “That’s fair, but everyone has their hidden demons, little spider. Just because he’s an open book doesn’t mean there’s not something he’s keeping.” She glanced over to him, found him looking back at her. “But you’re a better reader than that,” she said. “Tell me about a book you had trouble opening.”

Peter eyed her for a moment and she looked back to the road.

“Natalia Alianovna Romanoff,” he said, and she turned to him sharply. The wheel followed her look and she had to spin it quickly to get the car back on track.

“ _What._ ”

“Natalia Alianovna Romanoff,” he repeated. “Born 1984 in Stalingrad, Russia. Trained in one of Russia’s Red Rooms and was employed by the KGB. Being top of your class and especially ruthless earned you the codename “Black Widow”. Later was targeted for assassination yourself, and the agent sent to kill you was the one and only Clint Barton. The two of you joined SHIELD together in the aftermath, after he decided to give you a chance. _Apparently_ – though this is totally crazy to me – you and Dr Banner have something going on, but that’s the only part of the story I don’t buy.”

Nat stared resolutely out the windshield. _That little shit._ He actually managed it. And not long after he even announced that he’d search.

The only person who knew about the Red Room that _he’d_ know of was Banner, but he’d been missing since Ultron. She shot him another sharp look, to find him watching the city pass them by. There was no malice in his expression, no pride or amusement. He was just watching.

She had to remind herself that he didn’t want to hurt her. That, while she should always remain alert, because a HYDRA agent is a HYDRA agent, no matter how they dress, he was a kid. A kid who didn’t have it out for her, who had always been friendly to her, who she _liked_. He did his job and he did it well.

That was to be praised at the very least.

“That was fast,” she settled on after another second passed. “Not a full story, but fast.”

Peter shrugged. “I wasn’t looking for a full story. I just wanted to know your real name, the rest was just out of interest.”

Nat nodded, slow. “Natasha Romanoff is my real name,” she told him. “Natalia was my first. It’s not who I am anymore.” She glanced over; Peter was watching her with an open expression. That kid had the ability to be as closed as they came, but at every turn he opened himself up. “It’s the same as you,” she said. “The Black Spider was your first name, not your real one. Only you get to decide who you are and what you stand for.”

Peter didn’t reply, just nodded and turned back to the window.

Natasha decided that when she got home later, she’d have to go through those HYDRA files she’d released to the internet again. She’d found bits and pieces of the Black Spider in them before, just snippets of the full story. Her aliases had all been leaked, but her life story hadn’t been. She’d have to start searching for it as if she didn’t know it and close down whatever still held her birth name.

Nat didn’t believe that names held power, but she didn’t want who she used to be out there for everyone to see.

 

**v. SAM WILSON**

Sam didn’t hang out with the youngest of the Avenger crowd often. But somehow he’d ended up on babysitting duty.

“I thought I didn’t need babysitters anymore,” Peter grumbled, slouching into the seat in the corridor.

“In the Tower, you have babysitters,” Sam replied, and if a little hostility made its way into his tone, he couldn’t be blamed. The rest of the team were doing important things. Nat and Clint were out on a recon mission, Bucky was at his Wakanda-approved rehab session, in which they tried to remove the effect of the trigger words and HYDRA brainwashing, and the rest of the team was in an important meeting.

Except from Sam. Because he was babysitting a seventeen-year-old.

He huffed. “Nope, we’re not just sitting here for the next two hours.” Sam stood and looked down to Peter. “Get up. We’re going.”

“Are we _allowed_?” Peter sneered, rolling his eyes.

“Probably not. Let’s get going before Tony realises.”

Peter followed reluctantly and Sam asked what the others usually did when they were hanging out with him. “The park, sometimes,” he said. “Or the training room. Or movies. Card games. One time Bucky and Nat took me to a bar.”

“A bar.”

“Yeah, I had a juice box.”

“A juice box.”

Peter hummed.

“You’re a fully trained HYDRA assassin and you drink juice boxes.”

“Tony says I need to a) _live a little_ and b) _be a kid for Christ’s sake, stop playing with knives on the ceiling._ ”

Sam didn’t ask for clarification. He wasn’t sure he even wanted it. He asked Peter the location of the bar, and they went there for lack of a better thing to do. It was dark and dingy, a real dive, and Sam rolled his eyes. This was exactly the kind of place Bucky would choose.

Sam ordered their drinks and the bartender rolled her eyes. “I remember you,” she said, looking at Peter. “The only person in the history of this bar to order a _juice box_.”

Peter cracked a grin and accepted the juice she placed on the counter. Sam paid, then paid for the pool table and they went towards the back of the bar, where it sat.

Being the middle of the day, the bar was mostly empty. “You ever played before?” Sam asked as he set up the table. Peter frowned then shook his head.

“I think I’ve seen someone else play, though. You just gotta hit the balls into the holes, right?”

“Yeah, but you can only hit the white,” Sam said. “And if you knock the eight in, you automatically lose. It’s gotta be the last one of your kind to be potted, alright?”

Peter shrugged with a nod and Sam broke, explaining the game as they went along. They played for a while, Sam winning the first two games and, when Peter finally understood what he was doing, exhibiting his expert aim and taking the third for himself.

“Hey,” Peter whispered during their fourth game. The meeting would be over soon and they’d go back to the tower, as if they never left. “She was here last time, too.”

“Who?”

“Jessica Jones.”

Sam knew the name in the vaguest of ways. A vigilante or a private investigator or someone who wasn’t big enough to be on the Avengers’ radar. She’d done something with some other New York vigilantes, but Sam couldn’t say he knew what. He recognised her though, from a picture he must’ve once seen; all dark hair and pale skin, leather jacket and drinking something hard and sharp in the middle of the day.

“She has super strength,” Peter said.

“You think you could take her?” Sam asked. “Like, in a contest?”

Peter shrugged. “Probably.”

“I can hear you,” Jessica Jones said, rolling her eyes and turning her head, slow, to look at them. Sam and Peter separated, jumping apart as if they hadn’t been talking. “Which one of you thinks you could beat me in a contest?”

Sam looked at Peter and Peter looked at Sam. The kid then raised a sheepish hand.

Jones raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “You’re tiny,” she said.

“You’re not all that big yourself,” Peter replied.

There was something of a smile on her face when she pulled herself down from her bar stool, grabbed her drink and walked over to the table. “I have super strength,” she said.

“I’m pretty strong,” Peter replied.

She looked amused at the prospect and hummed. “I’ll put fifty down on me kicking your ass at an arm wrestle.”

Peter raised an eyebrow. “I’ll take that,” he said.

Sam scoffed. “Since when did you have money?”

“Since my _particularly rich father_ realised that allowance is a thing he’s supposed to give his son.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Fifty on the kid,” he said, jerking his thumb towards Peter. He’d seen the kid fight; seen him in the training room and a couple times in action. He had this.

Jones looked surprised but she covered it quickly, setting the drink down on the pool table and cracking her fingers. She nodded for them to follow and they found an empty table where they could sit across from each other. Someone eyed them and Jones glared back.

“Arm wrestling contest,” she said. “Care to take a bet.”

“You or a child?” the stranger asked, a laugh in his voice.

“We’re pretty strong,” Peter said, mild.

And so it began. Sam didn’t know how it happened, really, and he’d been watching the whole thing. It was no longer just Jessica Jones vs Peter Parker. It was Jessica Jones and Peter Parker against everyone in the bar. Money was thrown around, exchanging hands; bets yelled as the bar began to slowly fill. Sam knew they were late, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He was both judge and, apparently, holding the money the kid won (which was getting to be _quite a lot_ , turned out). If he took a little off the top for himself (a holder’s fee), he knew Peter wouldn’t mind. The kid’s parents were billionaires after all.

So Jessica – they hung out long enough to get onto a first name basis – and Peter methodically took down everyone in the bar in the contest. It was probably unfair to not disclose the fact that both of them had super strength, but then again, no one was asking.

After an hour (Jessica had downed four drinks in that time and Peter had _asked_ four times for something alcoholic and Sam had bought him another juice box every time), it was down to the two of them.

“Two hundred on the kid,” someone said.

“No way! I went against the girl and she almost tore my arm off! He hasn’t got a chance-”

“Well I went against the kid and you didn’t see the look on his face! He was just holding my arm there! He texted in the middle of it. That girl hasn’t got a chance!”

Jessica smirked across the table at Peter. “Either way we both go home a lot richer than when we came,” she said.

“Oh, totally,” he agreed. “I like the idea of a win-win, which is why I’m not betting anything on myself.”

“No?”

Peter shook his head and lowered his voice. “On the off chance you can actually lift seventy-five tons, too, I don’t wanna lose two grand.”

Sam caught the look on Jessica’s face, and he knew it to be shock. He had the same expression for all of a second. _Seventy-five tons._ No one stood a chance against him. Sam absently wondered if even Cap could lift that much.

“Alright,” he said. “Let’s have a nice little championship fight. I need to return the kid to his parents in one piece, so no breaking bones or anything like that.”

Jessica rolled her eyes. “Just start the countdown, Bird Boy.” (No one in the bar, the entire day, had mentioned his Avenger status. Maybe Jessica Jones was a little more observant than he thought.)

“Three, two, one-”

For the first time, Peter seemed to actually try. Their hands wavered, shaking against one another, tipping centimetres at a time to one side or the other. Jessica was wincing so hard her eyes were almost shut and Peter’s face was going red with exertion. Maybe she could lift seventy-five tons, too.

Ever so slowly, Jessica’s fist was lowering to the table beneath Peter’s. So slowly that the bar was going crazy, yelling for her to make a comeback, screaming that she could do it. She was withstanding Peter’s strength. She was holding him back and Peter looked so close to pulling up into standing or weighing himself down on the table, breaking the rules.

“Come on, kid,” Sam muttered, and then it happened.

Jessica’s hand, just barely, hit the table. And then she relaxed.

The crowd yelled, Peter leapt in the air with a shout of victory and Sam raised his hand, announcing the winner. In her seat, Jessica smiled, shaking her head. Peter laughed so bright and Sam went about collecting Peter’s winnings.

Maybe they should do this more often, Sam considered. The two of them, going around the city, pretending Peter didn’t have super strength and hustling the public – well it was an idea he could get behind.

Later, as the three of them left the bar, finding the sky beginning to darken and all their phones filled with missed calls they’d purposely ignored, Jessica turned to Peter.

“Mutant?” she asked, “Or something weirder?”

“Illegal experiment,” he replied.

“Oh, hey!” she said with half a smile, “Me too.”

They bumped fists like they were friends and Sam shook his head. That kid could win anyone over, even him, apparently.

When they returned to the tower, over two hours late, Tony was glaring at them in the communal floor. Peter froze on the spot outside the elevator and Sam shrugged.

“It was the kid’s idea,” he said, turning to walk down a hallway.

“It was not!” Peter yelled after him, suddenly back in action. “Hey! Where are you going? You can’t let me get in trouble for this – it was your idea! You _judged it all! At least bring me back my money, Wilson! You have over two thousand dollars of my hard-earned money on your person right now! Come back here!”_

Sam cackled the whole way down the hall, hearing Tony’s startled voice cut through the shouting.

“He has what-”

**vi. WANDA MAXIMOFF**

Wanda didn’t know Peter very well – not like everyone else did. She was used to keeping to herself, her head her favourite place to be. In her mind, Pietro was still alive, still running and snarking and reminding her of a hopeful future. In her mind, Vision was there, because between her powers and his, they were always present with each other, no matter where they physically were. In her mind, the Bad Things hadn’t happened, like Ultron, like HYDRA, like the rubble that held her down, frozen in one spot, for days.

Sometimes the real world was a bit like the attack. A bit like staring at a bomb shell that could go off at any minute, but never did. A bit like staring and waiting, the tension crawling up your neck, only to find yourself taut and stiff when the fears never made it to reality.

What she knew of Peter was little. He was intelligent, bright and funny. He didn’t seem to mind that he didn’t know Wanda well; he was always kind to her. He was unlike how she’d expected the Starks to be. Unlike the warmongers they once were. He was better.

So she didn’t know him very well, and he didn’t know _her_ very well. This was why it was a surprise to find him on her doorstep.

The apartment she and Vision lived in was in the same building as Sam. They’d gotten the place on the Avengers tab (AKA Tony Stark’s tab – the old her was cringing, but the new her knew that Stark paid their rent out of care, not arrogance), and would be staying until the compound was finished. She didn’t know that Peter knew her address. She also didn’t know how he was here without supervision.

“Peter,” she said, then glanced down the hall. Empty.

“Bucky’s in the car,” he replied with a wave of his hand. “He said _be good or I’ll tell on you_ , so don’t worry.”

She quirked a small smile and stood aside to let him in. He eyed her apartment with curiosity and Wanda bit her tongue to stop herself from apologising for her home. It was messy but well lived in. There were boxes lining the walls, as they’d started packing once more, and Wanda’s clothes left over the back of the couch. Knick knacks lined the shelves and window sills, two guitars in the corner, a collection of photos in every direction.

Vision was not a sentimental man. He had no need for material possessions. The apartment always felt a little more like hers than his. In the adjacent kitchen, there was washing up, waiting to be done, and the still-lingering smell of lunch, where she’d tried to teach Vision about spices ( _again_ ) only for him not to understand taste well enough to know if he’d done it right.

“I don’t think you’ve ever been here before,” she said, though she knew he hadn’t.

Peter turned to look at her and shook his head. “I haven’t, but I was hoping for a favour.”

Wanda raised an eyebrow. “What kind of favour?”

“The important kind.”

Wanda eyed him for a moment before crossing over to the couch. She collected the mess of clothes and dumped them on the armchair. They still needed to be ironed, but Wanda didn’t _enjoy_ ironing. Vision, a man who enjoyed trying simple human chores; small actions that would take no thought processing so he could focus on other things, would probably do it later.

Wanda gestured to the now empty couch and landed heavily on it, tugging up her feet to pull them underneath her.

Peter sat down and took a breath. She waited in silence before he turned to her.

“I was taken at six,” he said, “and I don’t know about other people, but I can’t remember anything from before HYDRA.” _Ah_ , she thought. _I understand._ “Well – that’s a lie. I can remember these _feelings._ ”

“Describe them.”

“Uh – okay. There’s always this yellow, golden light? Pepper’s hair. It’s like, the sun, or something, in colour. I always remembered that. Hands, too. I just remember the feeling of gentle hands. Once I remembered the beach, for a moment, but then it was gone the next.”

“You want me to help bring back your memories.”

Peter nodded. He looked almost embarrassed at the favour. Like he was ashamed of asking. “I know the human mind doesn’t keep _everything_. Or, if it does, it’s so deeply buried it might never be found again. But I want more to go off, you know? There’s this whole life I didn’t get to live-”

“And you’d like to know what it might’ve been like.” Peter nodded and Wanda smiled her softest smile. “I do not remember my oldest of memories,” she said. “Not the ones from when I was too small to know much else. But I do remember a time when I was four or so – Pietro, my brother, and I played in the park. Our parents watched on. I think we had a picnic that day.” She could see the grass, the ball the two of them passed, the picnic blanket laden with food. “It is nothing big, but it brings me peace. It lets me remember my brother from a time before we let our anger guide us.”

Peter was watching her with strangely observant eyes. She’d heard he was a HYDRA spy once. He’d learned to watch, to process the information and analyse it for weakness. He could try, Wanda figured, but she owned her weakness now. There was nothing for him to latch onto and tear apart.

“Lay down,” she said, gesturing at him. She shifted in position and guided him until Peter’s head was resting on her lap. She asked him to close his eyes and he did so. For a moment, she studied him; searched the soft lines of his face, the youth in his features. If he hadn’t been raised for war, he would’ve been the picture of innocence. She couldn’t imagine this Peter being raised to be the kind of man she used to think Stark was. She couldn’t picture the Tony Stark she knows now raising him to be anything but a ball of bright, joyous energy.

The red glow of her powers curled, tantalisingly slow, around her fingers. Gentle and soft, her fingertips touched Peter’s temples, and he went lax, the tense muscles of his body relaxing beneath her touch. Then she went searching.

She dove into his mind, her eyes closed as she saw the nerves, one by one, glowing red as she jumped the synapses between them. She saw flashes of images, of Tony Stark’s smile, of Pepper Stark’s sleek dresses. There were faces she didn’t know, of a dark-skinned teenage girl, of a brown boy with a mop of black hair. There was a crude, red and blue suit – the one the vigilante Spiderman wore, the one she’d been informed was Peter’s.

Pushing further, she slipped into HYDRA once more, with dark, underground bases, black clothes and white lab coats. She saw a spider, crawling its way up his chest. There was a gun in Peter’s hand, a bullet flying into a man’s head. There was murder and kidnapping, and Peter crawling up the sides of buildings one second and stuck in a similar cell to Wanda’s the next. He had been an experiment as much as a soldier; he had been a killer before he’d learned to be a boy.

After she saw Bucky as the Winter Soldier, swinging his arm at Peter and knocking him to the ground, she delved deeper, further, trying to find something brighter, something she could gently pull on so Peter could find it again.

Eventually, she came across a tangle. It was small and tightly wound, like it had been pushed down and hidden. She poked at it with her mind, the red energy glancing off the memory. Peter gasped, just a little, beneath her hands.

Wanda found herself cradling the tangle, then unravelling it, until she could finally see something. The beach, like Peter had said, was first. A beautiful, expansive blue. Picnic mats were spread out nearby, with a young Pepper and Tony lounging across them. Peter was building a sandcastle, and a man with dark skin was knelt next to him, helping the child pat down the sand.

 _Rhodey!_ someone said in the memory. _It’s lunch time!_

There was a small barbeque, burning. There were others; friends to the family. There were other children, running and playing. There was a life that Wanda had heard nothing of, and it seemed, Peter couldn’t remember living.

She pulled a little further, and the memories spilt out. There weren’t a lot of them, but there were enough to put the picture together.

There was a beautiful Malibu mansion. A school Peter didn’t attend for long. There was a lab, an old car, Peter building circuit boards and trying to figure out an engine. There were galas and events, blurred together, indistinct. There was Pepper, saying _We’ll pick out a dog this weekend!_ and the whispered memory of a conversation about _Peter II, we could have another, you know._ Then there was the sound of a gunshot, the smoke that filled the room. Trauma had blocked out the memory, blocked out his childhood, and Wanda frowned.

The memories were brought in so beautifully, so soft at first, but they were tinged with heartache now, as she watched them and Peter remembered them for the first time.

“It’s not everything,” she whispered, gently pulling from his mind. “But there was nothing more I could find in there.”

Peter opened his eyes and looked up at her. “We were going to get a dog, but I was taken before we could.” Wanda nodded. “They wanted another child.” She smiled sadly, ran her hands slowly through his hair. She didn’t know him but she did. She had been inside his mind and looked around.

Peter didn’t seem happy but he didn’t seem sad, either. “I miss the beach,” he said. “I never realised until now, but I really miss the beach.”

 

 

**vii. BUCKY BARNES**

It was Bucky that took Peter to the science exhibit at the museum. Not because Tony or Pepper wouldn’t or couldn’t, but because, contrary to popular belief, Bucky _liked_ science.

“I wouldn’t have pegged you for it,” Peter admitted as they wandered around the exhibit. Bucky was in his best disguise (aka, a hat and a jacket), and Peter was wearing a t-shirt that had the words _I AM TONY STARK’S SON_ written on it in Sharpie. Apparently, his friend MJ made it for him and Bucky found it the funniest thing he’d seen in seventy years.

“No one does,” Bucky replied. “I’m not into the whole _theory_ and _working your whole life to discover a new element_ kind of thing. It’s just – I remember the original Stark Expos, you know? Howard had a flying car. A _flying car_. Well- it broke after about five seconds of hovering, but it hovered all the same. And that was incredible. The shit humans can pull off is incredible. _That’s_ what I’m into.”

Peter smiled. “How messed up were you when you realised there were no floating cars.”

Bucky laughed. “Oh my _God_ , Pete. I was so confused. Howard had promised they were ten years away, and I’m awake seventy years later and there’s still no flying cars. Makes me want to go back in time and punch him in the face. I wanted to fly, kid. _Fly._ ”

Peter grinned and they moved to the next part of the exhibit.

“And your webs – I’ve seen those in action,” Bucky continued. “The fact that you thought that up and _made_ them.”

Peter nodded. “The scientists thought I was crazy to try it but it went with the aesthetic you know? I had a theme going.”

Bucky shook his head. “You know what theme they gave me?”

“Murder metal arm man?”

“No- well, yes. But they gave me the Captain American symbol, just changed the colours.”

“God,” Peter said, “that’s depressing.”

“Right, like it was some kind of inside joke for everyone in the room. They were all like, hey, here’s Captain America’s best friend, an amnesiac who has no idea why we’re laughing at the symbol we painted on his arm.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “I prefer murder metal arm man,” he said. “Oh! And emo racoon.”

“What the fuck is _emo racoon_.”

Peter shrugged. “It’s what one of the other cadets called it. Or you. You know, you had the whole… _look._ ” Peter gestured with his hands but Bucky was confused, so he shrugged and turned back to the exhibit.

Bucky noticed the flash out of the corner of his eye, and he stilled to get a better look. _Ah._ Teen girls with camera phones. They had recognised him despite the fool proof disguise. Usually, he wouldn’t care so much about being spotted – he was an honorary Avenger half the time, a fully-fledged Avenger the rest, and kids learnt about him in school. People knew the face of Bucky Barnes.

His problem was the kid next to him.

Despite the entire school of Midtown knowing that Peter knew the Avengers, the news had succeeded in being contained. The copious NDAs and threats of legal action had kept the rumours circulating, but not leaving Midtown’s walls. No one had photos of Peter with any Avengers, and no one outside the team (and Peter’s two friends) had knowledge of his _Starkness_.

Bucky wasn’t going to be the one to ruin that.

He turned, just slightly, so he was faced away from the camera and the girls.

“I’m going to walk away,” he said, low, barely moving his lips. “So it looks like we’re not together.”

Peter just hummed, not even glancing over.

With one final look at the exhibit, Bucky wandered over to the next, and then a moment later, the next.

Inwardly, he thought it was ironic that the one day Peter wears a t-shirt that, even jokingly, announced his parentage, people would recognise one of the Avengers. Bucky had heard that Sam had run an entire _arm wrestling competition_ out of a bar without being noticed – but it was just his luck that he was.

Eventually, the two girls decided to approach and ask for a photo, which Bucky reluctantly gave them. It was strange – he was photogenic, once, before the war. He was charming and impressed his dates and took them dancing and to see flying cars and scientific wonders. The future of life after the war; just a snapshot in their very own city.

Now he was barely smiling in the photos, trying to keep one eye on Peter and one eye on everyone else, glancing over, trying to place him. He did what he had to do to get through it; he took pictures, shook hands and moved through the exhibit, making sure he stayed in the same room as Peter, who wandered from place to place, ignoring the spectacle of an Avenger.

Eventually, he was released and everyone who had seen him before had dispersed, allowing Bucky to sidle up to Peter’s side and continue as if it hadn’t happened.

“I don’t mind,” Peter said, in case Bucky did. “You have a very recognisable face.”

“Oh yeah?”

Peter hummed. “There was this cadet – Jessica. She always insisted you were attractive in a weird, murderous, rugged way.” It was off subject but it wasn’t. Bucky frowned.

“I don’t remember her.”

Peter shrugged. “She was top of the class, I think. Got to go out on solo missions way before me. Didn’t even need a spider bite to do it – was just naturally evil or something.”

Bucky couldn’t place the name but he didn’t mind. “Wanna go get lunch?” he asked, and they did. They ate fast food and drove back to Peter’s house and when Pepper was waiting for them in the kitchen, they tried to at least act like Bucky hadn’t been swarmed by the public.

“I cannot believe you,” she said, exasperated.

Peter frowned. “Me or him.”

“You. Him. Both of you. _Peter._ Why are you wearing that shirt?”

Peter looked at the Sharpie words and shrugged. “It’s funny.”

“It’s also all over Twitter.”

The two of them paused. “Twitter,” Bucky repeated.

Pepper picked up her StarkPad and showed it to them; a photo of Bucky with fans, and in the background, just walking to an exhibit, a boy with a shirt that clearly said _I AM TONY STARK’S SON._

“You can’t even tell who it is,” Bucky said, pointing at the image. “He’s too blurry.”

“Yeah,” Peter agreed. “No one knows its me.”

“That’s not the point,” Pepper said, though it partially was. “The point is sixty thousand people talking about that t-shirt, both wanting it and thinking it’s _incredibly insensitive_ considering Tony Stark’s son is assumed _dead._ ”

There was a beat. “Ah,” Peter breathed. “I forgot about that.”

“You forgot,” Pepper said.

“Well! It’s not like I _am_ dead! And I’m not offended! Well – maybe it _would_ be rude, coming from someone random. Or maybe like, a cry for help? I don’t know. No one stopped me though! Like, no one said, _hey you, kid, that’s really insensitive to the heartbroken parents of Tony Stark’s son why are you so mean_ -”

“Peter,” Bucky said, nudging the kid in the arm. “I think you’re making it worse.”

Pepper sighed, raising a hand to make them both stop. “Just- just stop wearing that t-shirt. _At least_ until the world knows you’re alive, okay? And you-” she pointed to Bucky, “next time he does something incredibly dumb and you’re the only adult around, _fix it_.”

“How was I supposed to fix this?” Bucky asked. Also, _it was a funny shirt._

“You have a jacket. Cover that the hell up.”

Bucky and Peter shared a grin, because what else was there to do? Peter changed shirts and Bucky went rummaging around the freezer for ice cream and Pepper took something to calm herself because her family was going to send her into cardiac arrest, one day.

**viii. JAMES RHODES**

Rhodey remembered the day Peter disappeared. He remembered the panic, the crying, the vomit-stained toilet bowl of the hotel. He remembered the campaigns, the press conferences, the times he let Tony collapse against his shoulder and held him up until the cameras were gone. He remembered Tony going, too. Pepper being relocated to a motel, somehow still getting up and putting herself to work every day, despite the fracture lines that Rhodey could see across her skin.

He remembered it all, and he remembered the phone call Tony made, the day they found out he was back.

“I told you about that kid, right? The Black Spider kid. Peter Parker.”

“Yeah. You told me. Hey, I’m on my way to help with compound clean up-”

“I’m not there. I need to tell you something.”

“Okay? Sure.”

“Peter is _Peter._ ”

“Right… Tones, you’re gonna have to be more clear about this.”

“Peter Parker, the Black Spider, the kid who got shot _twice_ today saving Pepper’s life-”

“What?”

“-is Peter Stark, is my _son._ My missing son.”

“… You’re being serious.”

“As a heart attack.”

“Holy motherfucking shit.”

He’d watched Peter sleep through the windows of the medbay; stared through the slats at this young boy, all alone, bruised and broken and _shot_. The same Peter he used to babysit and carry on his shoulders, who called him _Uncle Rhodey_ and said he was going to be a pilot when he was older, who wanted to join the army to be like him, who wanted to be an engineer to be like Tony, who wanted to wear high heels and look dangerous to be like Pepper.

This was that kid.

This was his nephew, his godson, the kid he thought he’d never see again.

(Rhodey hated to admit it, so he never did aloud, but he lost hope for Peter’s return a long time ago.)

It was impossible, then, for him to be back, because he _wasn’t supposed to be._ Because Rhodey, and all his training, hadn’t been there the day Pete had needed him. Hadn’t found him like he did Tony. Hadn’t searched hard enough, because he’d been under their noses this whole time in a hidden HYDRA base.

He’d been searching the Middle East for Ten Rings outposts, had men scour every one from top to bottom rather than blowing them to pieces on sight. He’d spent years on their track, demolishing an entire organisation from the ground up, and he’d been looking in the wrong place the whole time.

Rhodey met Peter briefly, before they moved into the Manhattan safe house. Quickly, with only a few words exchanged, with Rhodey frowning at this kid who shared an uncanny resemblance, now he thought about it, to the boy he’d held in his arms the day he was born. His best friend’s son.

Peter called him _Rhodes_ not _Uncle Rhodey_ and had a searching expression on his face, like he was sizing Rhodey up, like he knew too much.

Rhodey went back to work.

 

*

 

Months passed and Rhodey barely saw Peter at all. He came back from the base, occasionally, to visit his favourite people, but less than normal, less than he used to. He couldn’t put his finger on it, couldn’t explain why he didn’t want to be near the child he’d been missing for ten years – but he knew he was avoiding New York because of Peter.

(On Peter’s birthday, Rhodey came because he was invited. Nat gave him throwing knives that were confiscated – Rhodey saw Peter steal them back. Rhodey gave the boy a card with money in it, because he didn’t know this kid, he didn’t know what he liked, but he did know that he didn’t have any money to do anything for himself, because that simply wouldn’t have occurred to Tony yet.)

So he was sporadic with his visits, even after Peter knew who he was.

And then, one day, he couldn’t be anymore.

“Are you avoiding me?” Tony asked over the phone. The call had been out of nowhere, and Rhodey stepped away from his meeting. He was the only government-employed superhero in the world. Sure, the others signed the Accords to make themselves legal, but none of them were paid to do their jobs, and their actions didn’t reflect on the US government like his did. The meetings, therefore, were all the time and always important.

“I’m in a meeting,” he said.

“Answer the question, Rhodes.”

“I’m not avoiding you,” Rhodey replied, quiet. He leaned up against the wall in the corridor, glanced at every uniformed person who passed. “I’m just busy.”

“You’ve barely been here in months. You used to visit all the time.”

“I have a job, Tones. Stuff to do. Maybe I’m dating-”

“I’d know if you were dating. I’d have background checked them all the way back to the second grade if you were dating.” Rhodey huffed a laugh. Tony continued, “It’s okay to be awkward, you know.”

“What?”

“About Peter. About what role you’re supposed to have. About not knowing who he is anymore.”

“I’m not _awkward_ -”

“Rhodey, you’re _so awkward_. But you’re gonna have to get over it because a) you’re a big boy now, and b) you should _get to know him._ I’m not raising a kid who doesn’t know how awesome my best friend is. That’s ridiculous. I wouldn’t want to _know_ a kid who doesn’t know about Colonel Rhodes: War Machine.”

“It’s Iron Patriot now.”

“Iron Patriot sucks ass and you know it, _warmachinerox._ ”

Rhodey laughed and felt regret rise in him. He was a soldier, afraid to meet a kid. Afraid to _know_ him.

“Come visit this weekend,” Tony said. “We’re moving back to the compound soon, so it’ll be your last chance to see how awesome life is in a regular house.”

“Tony Stark in a normal house.”

“When the press finds out, they’ll have a field day with it.”

 

*

 

When Rhodey arrived, FRIDAY let him in.

“Peter is in the living room,” she informed him. “Boss and Mrs Boss are currently at work. Peter has been informed of your arrival.”

He thanked the AI before heading upstairs. He could totally do this. He’s War Machine. He kicks ass. He’s saved the President’s life. He’s a _national hero_. A seventeen-year-old kid was nothing.

“Rhodes,” Peter greeted, not looking up from his book. From what Rhodey could tell, it was a period romance novel. He didn’t question it – he knew Pepper had hundreds of them hidden somewhere.

“Hey, Pete. Just the guy I was looking for.”

Rhodey’s leg braces whirred as he moved through the living room. He landed at the other end of the sofa to Peter and watched him fold down the corner of the page and throw the book onto the coffee table.

“What’s up?”

Rhodey blew out a breath. He could do this. “Ah, well, I wanted to see how you’re doing.”

“How I’m doing?” Peter raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah. You know, you’re moving soon, and you’ve never been to school before – it’s technically your last year, right? As well as your first?”

“Yeah,” Peter said. “Senior year. Tony said I went to school once though. When I was little?”

Rhodey nodded. “For like two months. Then someone threatened to blow the school up and he decided you should get homeschooled instead.”

Peter cracked some semblance of a smile and sat up. He crossed his legs and studied Rhodey like he had on that day in the medbay. Like he was trying to figure something out.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Peter said at last. “Pretend to want to know me.”

Rhodey frowned. “What?”

“I have super hearing. I heard Tony call you the other day, all like _you should come talk to Peter because you’re totally avoiding him_.” He imitated Tony by – curiously – making his voice a higher pitch. “You can go back to avoiding me, I don’t mind.”

“I’m not avoiding you,” Rhodey said, rolling his eyes. He needed to get this back on track. This was _Peter_ , come on.

“Then what were you doing?”

He blew out a breath. “Avoiding everything else.” Peter waited, quiet, for Rhodey to continue, so he did. He shifted to get more comfortable with the braces. “When the military took up the search for you after Tony went missing in Afghanistan, I was placed at the head of the project. That was my project: finding you. For the military, for Tony and Pepper, for myself. I mean, that’s a big undertaking. And we tried, we kept looking and we took out the Ten Rings in the process.”

Peter tilted his head. “That’s why they got dismantled?” he asked.

“You know about that?”

“Yeah. They were big in the Middle East, and they’re still out there, in these tiny, hidden groups, but they got taken out like a decade ago. That was you.”

Rhodey nodded. “That was me searching for _you_. And it turned out we were looking in the wrong place the whole time. I failed. I failed my best friends, I failed my job, and I failed you, Pete. And I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry I didn’t find you, didn’t bring you home so you could have the life you deserved.”

Peter’s face turned neutral for all of a moment before he whispered, “Thank you for looking.”

Rhodey blinked. Peter was smiling, easy, now, and he pulled himself off the sofa.

“Wait right here.” He darted out of the room and started up the stairs. Rhodey took the moment to breathe deeply, to wonder how a kid raised in HYDRA could thank him for trying, even though he failed for a _decade._ Even though he gave up hope. Even though he found so few traces of the boy he cared about, that the military eventually handed the case back to the police.

Peter returned, his hands clasped behind his back. He landed back in his seat without showing Rhodey what he was hiding.

“Mom said you’re my godfather,” Peter said.

“That’s right. Tony and I used to joke about raising a kid together for no reason other than _we could totally do that, right?_ ” Rhodey smiled at the memory, getting lost in it. “I was his first call when he found out Pepper was pregnant, and he told me immediately that if there was anyone he wanted looking after his kid if he and Pepper couldn’t, it would be me.”

Rhodey thought about that conversation a lot, thought about how he’d failed Tony, even when Tony insisted that he hadn’t. But Peter was smiling at him, soft, like he’d _wanted_ to know that. Like he’d wanted that part of his history back.

He pulled out what he was hiding, and Rhodey’s eyes widened at the sight of the navy blue baby blanket.

“Pepper said you gave it to me,” Peter said, holding it out. Rhodey took it, gentle, and felt the fabric, worn and frayed from years of being carried in Pepper’s handbag, years of Peter’s infant roughhousing.

“Your first birthday,” Rhodey replied. “I used to know what you liked, you know? I used to know you. Back then you were small enough for it to cover your body completely, and then when you were about two, you had this pink one that you preferred for a solid six months.” Rhodey’s smile was something sad, and he looked at Peter, finding his eyes wide as he tried to hold every word Rhodey was saying and not let them go.

“You didn’t understand my job until you were three. When you found out what a soldier did, that I was sometimes in danger, that when I was away on business, it meant more often than not, I was in an active war zone, or at least, monitoring one- kid you cried for like a week. Tony couldn’t go into the lab because you would scream the nanny’s ear off… When they realised you were afraid for me, Pepper searched the whole house until she found the blanket again. That’s why you carried it around. And every time I visited, you’d get so excited. You became a bit superstitious about it after a while – like, if you lost the blanket, I might get lost, too. If you left it alone, maybe I’d know and feel alone too.”

Rhodey shook his head. “I shouldn’t have stayed away. I should’ve been here when you moved in, and I should’ve been around to help you with starting school and taking some of those babysitting shifts Nat told me about. I’m sorry, Peter. I’m gonna do better.”

When Peter smiled it was like the sun after forty days of night. Rhodey didn’t understand how a kid with his past could have that kind of smile. Peter closed the gap on the sofa. Whatever kind of hug Rhodey then received was short lived; Peter ducking in and out and swiping his blanket when he pulled away.

“I’m gonna get a drink,” he said, like it hadn’t happened at all. “You want anything?” He wandered to the kitchen, behind them, and kept talking before Rhodey could reply. “I hear you’re a literal rocket scientist, right? MIT, top of your class. Weapon manufacture and whatever for the army?”

“Yeah-”

“Awesome, because I have homework to do and Tony’s very much in the realm of _learn it yourself, Peter, and only come to me if you’re struggling,_ but I get this vibe from you that you’ll help me now because I’m asking and because I fell asleep during class, so I don’t know the theory in the first place.”

Peter rambled, making coffee for the two of them (how he knew Rhodey’s exact order, he had no idea), as if this had always been the way. As if ten years hadn’t passed. As if they’d never been apart.

“Oh,” Peter said, setting the coffees down in front of them. “Clint’s going on at me, trying to get me to call him Uncle Clint, and I’m not out of spite right now, but Tony said I used to call you Uncle Rhodey – so if it’s cool, I kinda wanna do that again, because _apparently_ calling people just by their last time sounds a little hostile.”

Rhodey cracked a smile. He missed this kid.

 

 

**ix. TONY STARK**

“It’s a funny t-shirt,” Tony agreed, sitting on a work desk in the lab and filling a box with screws and drill bits. The box was marked _tiny misc crap_. Peter sat on the floor, trying to fit one of the many computer screens into another box. “But yeah, it’s probably the biggest dick move in the universe if you’re _not_ my son.”

“Well I know that _now_ ,” Peter grumbled. “MJ made it and I’m not gonna _not_ wear something like that. And when you tell everyone, they’ll all understand, you know?”

“Yeah, but right now people are angry and calling for your head to be sliced off your body,” Tony replied, mild. “It’s just how the internet works. Speaking of, you need to get yourself some social media accounts.”

“So I’m told.”

“This isn’t me saying it like your school friends,” Tony replied, “this is me saying it because the world is invested in you and your prolonged existence. They’re going to _want_ to know you and know you’re okay. I’d wait a few days for all this to blow over, and then I’d set up a Twitter account.”

“I wouldn’t even know what to use it for,” Peter replied. “Why would someone just go and write all their innermost thoughts online? That’s the easiest way for someone to know you inside and out, I mean, your weaknesses all out there for someone to see?”

“Pete,” Tony said, “not everything’s a mission. The vast majority of people don’t have a price on their head or a target on their back. They use social media because it’s _fun._ ”

“Do you use it?”

Tony shrugged. “Professionally, sure. For updates on SI and Avengers and things. But not personally. I don’t post selfies or anything.” Tony’s Twitter was one of the most followed in the world, and yet he only Tweeted every two weeks about a new product or an Avengers announcement.

“You should,” Peter said. “The world seems pretty attached to your prolonged existence, too.”

They fell silent after that. DUM-E and U brought them toolkits and empty boxes to be filled. It was strange to think they were leaving the house; moving to the compound upstate. Peter had thought they wouldn’t move there until he was done with school, but Tony promised he could stay at Midtown as long as he was okay with the drive and getting up earlier to make it on time.

Peter didn’t mind. He didn’t want to leave Midtown and his friends, especially after the announcement that was being planned out.

“Did you and Rhodey have fun?” Tony asked after a while. He tried to make his voice sound as uninterested as possible about the day before, but he was jittery on the inside. This was _Rhodey_. This was his kid’s godfather. This meant a lot to him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Peter smile. “Yeah. He helped me with my homework, and he told me stories about you and Pepper back when you were younger.”

“Yeah?”

Peter nodded. “And about you in MIT and the four times you blew up the lab.”

Tony smiled. “Ah, memories. To be young.” He watched Peter fiddled with the contraption in his hands before looking over.

“I’m happy he’s back,” he said. “It’s no barbeque on the beach or Disney World or whatever, but it’s nice having him around.”

Tony smiled and then quickly frowned. “What do you mean?” A barbeque on the beach. Disney World. Tony had distinct memories of those things; of Rhodey building sandcastles with Peter and holding him in the water, his orange floaties around his arms. Of rides that Peter was too afraid to go on and the ones he squealed the whole way through.

When Peter spoke, it was very quiet, barely audible. “I remember some things from before,” he said.

“ _What?_ Since when? Why didn’t you say anything?” Tony slipped off the table, shoving the boxes out of his way to reach Peter. The kid had so few memories of his childhood, how did he reach any more?

“I visited Wanda,” Peter admitted.

Tony raised his eyebrows – he’d considered going to Wanda before about it, but she always made him nervous. She was a great fighter and had a good heart, but her mind powers only brought back cold memories of his family, dead, and he being the only one who wasn’t. Every time he considered going to her, he dismissed it. But Peter had the same thought-

“I got Bucky to drive me. She said that I wouldn’t be able to remember everything, but there were bigger memories, you know? Important ones? They came back, kind of. They’re-” Peter seemed to be struggling for the right words and he made aggravated hand gestures as he searched. “They’re there but not. Sometimes. Like, you know when you look away and you can see something out of the corner of your eye but it’s gone when you look directly at it?”

“That’s okay,” Tony said, “it’s better than having none.”

Tony led Peter to the sofa at the side of the room and they settled on it.

“I remember being taken,” Peter said. “Or, a glimpse of it at least. I remember the smoke and a van – being shoved into it. After that there’s nothing for a long time, until I woke up in a cell. But- but I remember good things, too. The beach. There were a lot of people there, lots of other kids. And I remember school, just a little. There were a bunch of tables and lots of kids and we played games with this big colourful fabric?” Peter was frowning at the memory. “Like, we’d lift it up and some people would run underneath?”

“A parachute,” Tony said. “I had it when I was a kid, too.”

Peter nodded. “And there’s lots of events, but they all blur together. Fancy dresses and speeches and champagne. Did I go to a lot of them?”

Tony smiled. “We didn’t like leaving you with the nanny more than necessary. You talked through all the speeches, no matter what.”

“Pepper said I could have a dog.”

“What?”

“I remember it,” Peter said, Tony understanding that this wasn’t a recent development. “Pepper said we were going to pick out a dog. But we didn’t, did we?”

Tony paused, locating the memory of Peter barking at every dog he saw and begging for months before they gave in. “You were taken on March 28th,” Tony said. “We had plans to get a dog that weekend, but you were gone before we ever did it.”

Peter’s eyes seemed to lock onto the floor and not move. “Like Peter II.”

Tony choked on air. He forgot how to inhale for all of a second, his hand gripping at the sofa under he could safely bring air into his lungs once again. “How do you know that name?”

“I remember it, vaguely,” Peter said. “Like you said it once in my vicinity and somehow it’s one of the things that my brain stored for ten years. You didn’t ever have Peter II.”

“No,” Tony said. “We didn’t.”

When Peter looked at him, Tony saw ten years lost in his eyes. Ten years that Tony spent in a form of stasis, just waiting on him to come home. Ten years that Peter didn’t get to live the way he should’ve.

“Will you tell me about it?” he asked.

“Of course,” Tony replied, though he’d hoped to never bring up Peter II for the rest of his life. “Uh- so, back when you were six, Pepper and I were trying for a baby. We wanted another, you know? We wanted you to have siblings. We wanted a girl, specifically. Pepper wanted to name her Morgan – like, this was already decided – and I wanted to name her Peter II to save time.” Tony watched Peter smile, just a little. He nodded and kept going. “Like having a dog, it was part of the dream. Part of the life Pepper wanted for us. Kids, a dog, a swimming pool. Then you left, then _I_ left, and it all got put on hold.

“We couldn’t just go and have another, not when we were searching for you. Not when we were heartbroken. So we didn’t. We didn’t talk about it for a long time, but after three years or so, we sat down and had a real discussion about whether or not we were going to have another child. It was already a lot that we’d stayed together – couples that lose their children often have these horrible break ups because they can’t do it anymore, and we were working so hard just to stay together back then.”

Tony sighed, trying to blink away the memories of the arguments, the shouting and hurt they caused each other. At the time, it didn’t matter how much they loved each other. They were down their son and it was leaving a gaping void they couldn’t hope to fill.

Peter moved until he was leaning into Tony’s side, and Tony wrapped his arm around his son’s shoulder. His prodigy baby, miracle child, prodigal son.

“We decided we wouldn’t have another. We’d never have Peter II or Morgan or whatever names we made up when we were just shouting them out to see if anything sounded good. We didn’t want to go through it again, you know?”

“Pepper said she couldn’t bear to lose another child,” Peter whispered.

Tony nodded. “Her and I both. So we didn’t. We decided that if we weren’t enough for each other, then we wouldn’t last anyway. We’d keep searching for you, we’d keep hoping, but we had to keep going with our lives. So we rebuilt our marriage, the Avengers happened, Pepper made SI the world’s biggest tech conglomerate and systematically destroyed our competition.”

Peter nodded. His hands fiddled in his lap like he didn’t know what to do. “So you’re not going to have another child?” Peter asked.

Tony sighed. “No, kid,” Tony said. “You’re more than enough for us. It’s a nice thought, but Pepper and I are still scared that we’ll lose you again – we don’t need to be worrying about another child who can’t defend themselves yet.” Tony pressed a kiss into Peter’s hair.

“Okay,” Peter said.

“You okay?”

Peter nodded and sent Tony a smile. “Yeah. I think having a little sister would be cool, but then I’d have to share you and Pepper and I don’t really want to do that anyway.”

Tony knew there was more to it than that, but he didn’t pry. Instead he grinned, let Peter slip out from his grasp and pull away from the sofa, heading back towards the boxes.

Over his shoulder, Tony’s son called, “That doesn’t mean we can’t get a dog, though, right?”

 _Yeah_ , Tony thought. _He’ll be fine._

**Author's Note:**

> YALL DIDNT SEE THAT RHODEY CONTENT COMING HUH
> 
> thank u to everyone who suggested bonding activities for peter with rhodey and bucky! (especially u, helga, who asked for science bros bucky and peter.) i tried to include many headcanons in this one - peter chilling on the ceiling, playing with knives; rhodey loving peter like his own son; twitter & peter and wanda trying to help peter get his memories back! there are totally more so let me know if u spot yours!
> 
> PRETTY PRETTY PLEASE talk to me in the comments! i love to hear your thoughts and i'm so excited about this one!!
> 
> thank you so much for reading! make sure you subscribe or bookmark the series to know when the final fics are published!


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